The number of stabbing victims with life-threatening injuries treated by specialist trauma doctors has increased by 34% in two years, according to NHS figures obtained by the Guardian.

Doctors are also reporting an increase in the severity of attacks, with victims increasingly arriving in hospital with multiple puncture wounds

“Previously we used to see one or two wounds per victim. Now we are frequently seeing multiple wounds, five or sometimes 10 stab injuries on a single patient,” said Dr Ross Davenport, a consultant trauma and vascular surgeon at the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel, east London

Figures from nine of the NHS’s 11 regional major trauma centres in England that treat adults and children show that they dealt with 1,697 victims of serious knife crime in 2015-16 but 2,278 in 2017-18 – up 34.2%. Cases involving adults have risen 37%, whereas under-18s have jumped by 24.4%.

At King’s College hospital in London, the number of adults treated for knife wounds rose from 249 in 2015-16 to 406 last year. The capital’s three other major trauma centres also saw big increases over the same two-year period.

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Other cities have also seen the same trend. At Southampton general hospital, cases have almost doubled in the past two years, with the number of adults rising from 68 to 134 and under-18s from seven up to 13.

Hospitals have also treated more child stabbing victims. At the South Tees trust, they rose from 10 in 2015-16 to 26 last year; and from three to 12 at Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital.

Dr Taj Hassan, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors, said: “The rise in knife crime in England is a source of serious concern both for the society we live in and for those of us who have to help care for the injured and their relatives where life, often young life is being so tragically lost.

“Victims of knife crime have a wide spectrum of presentations especially those who suffer chest injuries. Patients can have a seemingly innocuous stabbing, be initially well and then deteriorate rapidly to ‘talk and die’. At the other end of the spectrum, they can suffer a cardiac arrest at the scene and die within minutes. The clinician caring for patients with a stabbing must have a high index of suspicion at all times.”

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The revelations follow official crime figures that showed a big rise in violent crime in England and Wales over the past year, including the largest number of knife offences on record – 39,332 in the year to June, up 12% in a year.

Trauma surgeons recently warned that some hospitals were running low on blood supplies because of the “epidemic” of people being stabbed and that “spikes” of violence often coincided with the end of the school day.

Ch Supt Ade Adelekan, the head of the Metropolitan police’s violent crime taskforce, said earlier this month: “People involved in violence are getting younger while the level and ferocity of attacks is getting worse, and I do not know why that is.”

At Nottingham’s main NHS trust, the number of adults admitted for treatment after sustaining the most serious knife injuries rose from 47 in 2015-16 to 184 last year while among under-18s there was an 18-fold rise, from two to 36.

Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff, a consultant in emergency medicine and major trauma at King’s College hospital, said: “The majority of knife crime victims we treat are young adults. The most serious injuries are to the chest or abdomen, though we also see a lot of stabbing to limbs.

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“In terms of treatment, much of what we do before they get to hospital and in the emergency department stabilises these victims and prevents many from requiring surgical intervention. These days we also use interventional radiology much more, which can often stop bleeding from vessels and organs.

“When patients do need to go to theatre this can involve opening of the chest, although this is often done pre-hospital or in the emergency department, or abdomen to control bleeding. This is known as damage control surgery and is to stabilise the patient which then means they can go back to theatre at a later date to have definitive repair.”

Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge refused to supply any data while the Newcastle upon Tyne hospitals trust said it had only collected reliable data on such incidents since last November.

Tackling the trauma of knife crime

Dr Ross Davenport is a consultant trauma and vascular surgeon at the Royal London hospital

“We’ve seen a sustained year-on-year increase in the number of young people and adults brought to the Royal London’s major trauma centre with stab injuries. People arrive at all times of day and night; however it is often busier as the day progresses and heading into the weekend.

“Treatment involves rapidly locating the wounds to assess likely damage to internal organs and the extent of blood loss, urgent imaging with scans and X-rays and then quickly moving the patient to theatre for emergency surgery to stem bleeding and repair damaged vessels. Strong teamwork between anaesthetists, scrub nurses and surgeons is essential to achieving rapid control of haemorrhage and good outcomes in these patients.

“London’s trauma system, with the embedded clinical research across the four major trauma centres, helps us implement cutting edge advances in resuscitation and trauma care much quicker. For instance, with major blood loss a feature of many knife injuries our research on bleeding at the Centre for Trauma Sciences at Queen Mary University of London has reduced mortality among the most critically injured from 50% to 30%.

“We are currently running a clinical trial at all major trauma centres in England called Cryostat-2, in which doctors are giving a type of blood transfusion called cryoprecipitate which contains all the essential proteins necessary to make a strong blood clot. Giving it earlier, we hope to reduce blood loss and improve survival further in trauma patients with major bleeding after injury.”